Guest worker or immigrant ‐ different ways of reproducing an underclass

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Abstract
The paper is an attempt to relate the different functions of migrants in the capitalist system to the educational provision in different countries for the children of respectively guest workers and immigrants. The guest workers’ children are seen as being educated to fulfil the needs for cheap flexible labour. The school system keeps them separated from the majority society and ready to be sent home whenever the labour of their parents is not needed any more. The immigrants’ children are seen as being educated to fulfil the function of a social buffer, to prevent higher social layers from experiencing the worst impact of restructuring the capitalist world economy so directly. Both groups are educated so that they do not as groups have any chance of economic and social progress. The educational systems for migrant children in West Germany and Scandinavia are examined to illustrate the claims, and the role of the researchers, trying to handle the conflicting factors involved (segregation or forced assimilation), is discussed.